Under Pressure: The 2025 General Election in the Czech Republic
Under Pressure: The 2025 General Election in the Czech Republic

Summary/Abstract: This article discusses the context and the results of the 2025 general election in the Czech Republic. It stresses the importance of the change of the contextual conditions including the new geopolitical situation after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and linked it to the domestic political outcomes. It concludes that the economic impact of the invasion (rise of inflation and pressures in the energy supply) fuelled growing discontent in the Czech society that helped the electoral success of populist political parties and subsequent formation of the populist government. Furthermore, the text analyses the electoral results, pointing to the uneven rise in electoral turnout and the change in the distribution of support among the political parties. Electoral turnout increase was primarily concentrated in socioeconomically vulnerable municipalities characterized by higher shares of primary-educated voters and elevated unemployment rates. The electoral results confirmed a progressive deepening of spatial polarization and reveal a clear pattern of territorial sorting among established political blocs (populist vs antipopulist). This divide was manifested along three dimensions: the classic urban-rural cleavage, the centrum-periphery axis, and a widening structural divergence between lagging, post-industrial regions and economically resilient and richer territories. The pattern aligns with broader European dynamics regarding the ‘geography of discontent’ where regional economic stagnation and peripheralization foster distinct party alignments.

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